The Brothers Karamazov

About this book

"The most magnificent novel ever written" - Sigmund Freud"In Dostoevsky there were things ... so true they changed you as you read them" - Ernest HemingwayA highly readable translation of one of the greatest novels of all time. "The novels of Dostoevsky are seething whirlpools, gyrating sandstorms, waterspouts which hiss and boil and suck us in. They are composed purely and wholly of the stuff of the soul." -- Virginia WoolfThe Brothers Karamazov is both a gripping murder mystery and a searching psychological analysis. The cruel and wealthy Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, and suspicion falls on his three sons: Dmitri, the hot-headed soldier; Ivan, the tormented intellectual; and Alyosha, a pure-hearted religious novice, who is the spiritual centre of the novel. The Grand Inquisitor chapter is among the greatest passages in literature and philosophy. The chapter is a terrifyingly accurate prophecy of the totalitarianism that arose in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) lived a life as intense as his fiction. At 28, he faced a mock execution by firing squad, a terrifying ordeal commuted at the last second to four years of hard labour in Siberia. This experience among hardened criminals transformed him and moved his focus toward themes of faith, redemption and the dark corners of the soul.Dostoevsky lived and wrote in Russia during the chaotic transition from feudalism to industrialism. This sense of a world in flux permeates his work. His tumultuous novels present searching debates about freedom, morality, and the existence of God. He is remembered as a literary giant who captured the profound complexity of the human heart.By translating seventy-one volumes of Russian literature, Constance Garnett single-handedly introduced these master novelists to the English-speaking world. Readers choose her editions for their famous readability and their faithful commitment to the original.